Watch: Why Humans Can't Survive Being Shrunk

Sometimes real-life science is able to catch up with the speculative technology in science fiction—usually Star Trek—but more often than not, it's a huge downer on most of our favorite movies. Case in point: this video that explains why Rick Moranis would murder his children in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids:

As the video explains, here are a few practical problems with being a super-tiny human like The Littles. First, we wouldn't be able to see, because our irises would be so tiny, they wouldn't let in enough light. And we would speak at different frequencies from full-sized humans, so they would never be able to hear our voices (although that's reflected in movies like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids). Plus, we would be very, very cold, since we would have a million times less volume to make body heat. But all of this is actually a moot point, since the hemoglobin in our blood would be smaller than the oxygen molecules it needs to carry, so our brains would shut down within minutes.

Luckily, there's no known way a shrink ray could be possible in any way, shape, or form. You can't remove the necessary matter from the body, because that would also just be murder. You can't take the empty space out of atoms, since spooky quantum probability means that the electrons could be in any part of the orbit at one time, so the space is never really "empty." And you can't push the atoms closer together, since that would make it more likely that two electrons would occupy the same space at one time, which would violate the Pauli exclusion principle.

So essentially, the plot of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids could never happen. Which is sad, on some level, but on the other hand, at least we would never have to attend Antie's funeral in real life. (RIP, Antie.)